Posts Tagged ‘Jeff Fassbinder’

A couple of weeks have gone by. Happy February! 1/12 of 2008 is already over. Wow time is blowing by so fast!

Thank you to everyone who stopped by and visited us at the AMA Convention. It was a pleasure to talk to all of you. I’m simply amazed at the positive comments and genuine excitement I saw in people about the Hobby! The line to get in Friday morning stretched all the way out into the parking lot! IMPRESSIVE!

The star of the show, in our humble opinion, was the RDS8000. The radio was demonstrated at the show in Jeff Fassbinder’s helicopter. He debuted a new version of the Thunder Tiger electric heli and a production RDS8000! All went well and he was pleased with the result. Last October, Jeff was the first person in the USA to fly the RDS8000 prototype in a helicopter. He tested it in his Raptor 90 competition heli with all positive results. Today, we’ve released the RDS8000 and are simply overwhelmed by the demand for the radio. We know it works great, but we’re thankful there are so many of you out there ready to fly Airtronics with us!

In the pictures of the booth, you’ll see Jack Albrecht, Craig Kaplan, and me together. This was our first chance to meet and work together face-to-face. Jack is an amazing figure in the hobby industry. He cares about Airtronics pilots’ success, about the hobby in general, and acts on those concerns locally by participating in his local club and nationally by working with the AMA. He’s a true leader in the industry and frankly we’re proud to know him and to be able to work with him here at Global. I just can’t say enough about his positive impact on us and the hobby in general.

Our modest little booth was designed and setup by Craig Kaplan. The lightup Airtronics sign Craig literally built by hand. Pretty impressive display I think!

There were lots of cool new stuff from Global in the Booth too. The ASM A26 (now being flown regularly by Larry Wolf at Jet Hangar Hobbies), the Phase 3 Flit, the Model Tech Super Cub, and really all the planes received a lot of attention. We even showed a car or two. The new little RAGE from XTM was amazing popular. A lot of airplane guys even showed interest in this little 1/18th truck!

We saw HUGE interest in our new Heli, the Cypher from EF Helicopters. This heli is a unique design in the 400 class. The head speed is 3000 rpm, the head has metal parts, the tail is slop free and solid, and the entire heli is simply well-built. It’s a true out-of-the-box 3D performer. Am I biased? YEP. Is it great? YEP. The pilots we asked to fly prototypes and give us feedback all say the same thing. NOTHING comes out of the box this good for 230 bucks especially with an esc and motor that were setup for this heli!

The show was simply fantastic and worthwhile for every modeler who attended. I hope next year to see even more of you there!